Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Nicki and I read Perry Noble's blog from time to time. He's the pastor at NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. He's always got some really interesting insights on life, ministry, leadership, and how to do church. You should check it out. Well, this is a semi-stolen post from his blog about praying for your pastor (that means I'm stealing the outline, but adding my own insights.) If you're a member of First Baptist Vidalia (or family), I would love to have you praying for me. If you're a member of another church, you can use this to pray for your own pastor.

#1 His Connection With God--This is a tough one. Pastors are sometimes the first to get off of their connection with God. The only way I can describe it is the way sometimes you see very out of shape coaches on the sidelines. They're so busy coaching their team that they forget to keep themselves in check. The same can be true for pastors. I would so appreciate your prayers for my connection with God

#2 His Family--The pastor's family is under enormous pressure! I don't know if any of you have ever realized it, but I rarely get complaints about the church. Nicki gets them ALL! She has to shoulder the responsibility of being supportive of her husband but at the same time field the issues that the church wants to bring. For some reason, we don't talk to people anymore. However, we LOVE to talk about people! That means that people would rather discuss things with Nicki than me. That's probably because Nicki usually has more compassion than me as well, but that's beside the point.The other thing that's tough about being a pastor's family is that they are always under the scrutiny of the entire church. "That's too much. That's too little. He's too rambunctious. He talks too much. Well, you know that's just a preacher's kid for you." It's really not fair that my wife and child have to hold up under this pressure. They are just unfortunately linked to "the preacher." You should really pray for them. Besides, when you pray for your pastor's family, you're really praying for him as well because they're without a doubt my number one support system. I NEED THEM!!! and I'm so glad God gave them to me!

#3 His Relationship to the Staff--This one seems like a no brainer, but do you know what you get when you put three (or more) driven/called men in a room and tell them to decide what the best avenue is to do ministry? You get HUGE conflict. I'm talking tough stuff to deal with. I know this may be disconcerting to some of you, but sometimes ministers don't like each other. We respect each other, but we disagree sometimes and have to go do ministry to the best of our ability. It's kind of like putting two pit bulls in a room and coming back to check on them in a couple of days. The obvious goal is to get out of the room, but those two dogs are GOING to have different ideas on how to make that happen. I love our staff and I'm so glad God has given me this opportunity to work with them, but praying for our relationships is crucial to seeing the ministry of the Gospel and FBC continue! (P.S. Just so you know, I REALLY like our staff!)

#4 His Battle with Spiritual Warfare--The enemy loves nothing more than seeing men of God fall! Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard...need I say more? I have personally seen lives devastated by the fall of a church pastor and it is awful. Let me just tell you, there isn't a moment of my day that I'm not fully aware of the lure of Satan trying to draw my eyes, ears, heart, mouth, life away from my Savior. Imagine the impact if I followed the "wide road that leads to destruction." PLEASE pray for your pastor in resisting the schemes of Satan as I pray for you in the same!

#5 His Rest--Ministry is a 7 day-a-week, 24 hour-a-day, 365 days-a-year job! Rest is crucial. Sometimes I wake up at night thinking about things in the church. Sometimes it's a sermon coming up. Sometimes it's a family having difficulty. Sometimes I don't know what it is, I just wake up with a burden on my heart. I used to feel like I had to get out of bed and go watch some TV or read a book to get my mind off of things and rest, now I just lay there and ask God to clear my mind of everything that doesn't need to be there right now and let me get some rest. But the thing remains...sometimes it's hard to take a break. But, just like all of you, a break is NECESSARY to going on for the long run! So your prayers for rest and recuperation are so appreciated.

Well...there you have it, 5 ways that you can pray for your pastor. I hope you'll take those burdens and bring them to God on my behalf. Why don't you leave me a comment and let me know how I might be able to pray for you.

The guy from "Stuff Christians Like" (a daily read for me) just posted a new site. It's called "Can I Wear Jeans" you can find it here. Anyway, the point of my post is that I would love for some of our church members to post a comment describing our church on there. You can stay anonymous, but I would love to hear what some of you thought about FBCV. It's also a way to describe our church so that others can find out about us and maybe visit someday. Check it out and be sure to leave a comment!!

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

I didn't realize it, but apparently I'm going to hell! This is a new revelation to me. I thought things were ok until I saw this picture on another blog. I was ok until number two on the list an then when I got to number 4...I knew I was done for! Oh well...how did you come out?